Youngstown Ohio Works - Dissolution

Dissolution

In the wake of the Ohio Works' second league championship, steps were taken to incorporate the club. Sporting Life noted in December 1906 that the team's backers, Joseph and Thomas McDonald (superintendent and assistant superintendent, respectively, of the Ohio Works of the Carnegie Steel Company) were compelled to invite additional investors because of planned (and costly) improvements at the steel plant. "The incorporators of the club will be Thomas McDonald, Joseph McDonald, Thomas Carr, Thomas Carter and Marty Hogan", the paper stated. "Manager Hogan will be given even more control of the team next season than he has had. Heretofore he has had the entire control of the team and transacted most of the business".

At some point, however, disagreements over funding evidently arose between the McDonald brothers and Hogan. On February 18, 1907, the Zanesville Signal reported that Hogan had received permission from "the Messrs. McDonald" (Joseph and Thomas) to negotiate a $3,000 deal for the sale of the team, including its players, to a group of Zanesville investors. The following day, Hogan was quoted as saying, "Youngstown couldn't or didn't raise enough money to cover a sparrow's blanket". The ball club manager's evident frustration during this period was reflected in comments published in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator almost a week after the team's sale. When questioned on his widely publicized decision to resign as manager of the Youngstown club before the opening of the 1907 season, Hogan reportedly said that he had received "the short end of the deal". No reference was made to the club's sale.

The former Ohio Works manager was apparently not the only observer to suggest that Joseph McDonald engaged in "unsportsmanlike tactics". A feature story, that appeared in The Youngstown Daily Vindicator in 1920, stated that McDonald took deliberate steps in 1907 to replace the Ohio Works team with a more seasoned club from Homestead, Pennsylvania. The new club became known officially as the "Youngstown Champs". Rumors of McDonald's supposed strategy apparently angered local baseball fans. According to the 1920 feature article, the Youngstown media highlighted the Champs' unexpected loss to the amateur Rayen Athletics in 1907. At this point, however, McDonald's relationship with the club was less direct. According to Sporting Life, the Youngstown franchise had been "declared forfeit" in early 1907, on the recommendation of the Akron club; it was subsequently "awarded" to a recently established baseball company. "This was only a formality to make legal the actions taken by Magnate McDonald when they turned over the old franchise to the newly organized company in Youngstown", the paper reported. In any event, the Youngstown Champs went on to win the Ohio–Pennsylvania League championship.

Meanwhile, former Ohio Works players in Zanesville quickly regained their momentum. In March 1907, the new club was admitted into the Pennsylvania-Ohio-Maryland League, a Division D league. By the close of the 1907 season, the club had seized the championship of the eight-team P-O-M league. In 1908, Hogan's final season as manager, the team was christened as the Zanesville Infants and joined the Central League. Further research is needed to determine the Zanesville Infants' league ranking at the close of the 1908 season, but available information shows that the team neither won the championship nor placed as a runner-up.

With the exception of a few notable figures, the progress of former Ohio Works players is difficult to track. After leaving the club at the end of the 1906 season, Roy Castleton went on to pitch for the New York Highlanders and Cincinnati Reds. Lee Fohl, another noteworthy alumnus, managed the Cleveland Indians between 1915 and 1919. Fohl later served as manager of the St. Louis Browns and Boston Red Sox. Although Fohl was often criticized as a manager, sports journalist John J. Ward (writing in August 1924) credited him, to a large extent, for the early successes of the Red Sox, an underdog that briefly challenged the New York Yankees and Washington Senators before slipping to seventh place in the eight-team American League. Former major leaguer Billy Phyle, who played for the Ohio Works team during the 1905 season, went on to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1906. A fourth ex-team member, Louis Schettler, played for the Philadelphia Phillies during the 1910 season. Schettler (a Pittsburgh native) eventually settled in Youngstown, where he died in 1960.

Much is known about the subsequent career of the team's ex-manager. In 1909, Marty Hogan moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he signed future Hall of Fame pitcher Stan Coveleski to his first professional contract. In 1909, the Lancaster Red Roses worked up a 75-39 record, seizing the championship of the Tri-State League. As Spalding's Baseball Guide (1910) reported: "Lancaster, under manager Marty Hogan, won its first pennant in the league, and the top rung of the ladder was only gained by the hardest kind of fighting". Hogan went on to manage clubs in Zanesville and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. In 1913, during a stint in Zanesville, the manager signed pitcher Sam Jones to his first professional contract. In the mid-1910s, Hogan permanently resettled in Youngstown, where he died in 1923, several months after being injured in an automobile accident.